Thursday, January 22, 2009

Neanderthal weaponry lacked projectile advantage

The Neanderthals of course are the most successful species of humans so far in that they were around on the planet for a lot longer than us and recent discoveries have begun to dispel the myths that Neanderthals were knuckle dragging morons. However despite being able to produce sophisticated tools and weapons the modern humans had a key advantage over them, projectile weapons.

Anthropologists have analysed the skeletons of early modern men and Neanderthals and found that the latter lack the backward displacement of the shoulder joint that results in overhead throwing activities. Without thrown overhead a projectile weapon has much greater speed and range. While the Neanderthals probably did still throw spears and other weapons modern humans who did throw overhead had a definite advantage. Steve Churchill, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, said "perhaps their...short, squat body build with short and massive limbs was not conducive to using throwing-based hunting technology".

2 comments:

jeda21 said...

They began compensating for their physical limitations a little later, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl

Kris Davies said...

In the original linked article the bit about how the Neanderthals probably invented the use of bitumen to connect sharp points to wooden shafts and handles is also interesting.